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RUSH: Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, prominent Democrat, enlisted as a surrogate for Obama’s campaign, ended up criticizing the Obama campaign yesterday for attacking Romney’s work at Bain Capital. Cory Booker was on Meet the Depressed. He made his comments in response to a TV advertisement of Obama’s campaign that was unveiled last week. It portrays Romney as somebody who eliminated jobs for the sake of profits during his years running Bain Capital, but during the period of time the Obama ad criticizes Bain, Romney wasn’t there. And by the way, Bain Capital didn’t go into business to create jobs anyway. That’s not what private equity does.

Johnson of Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder, he did not go into business to create jobs and to provide health care for his employees. He went into business to sell products. And it turned out that he needed employees to make that happen, and it grew, and he needed more employees, and they needed health care. And this is the point basically Booker said. We’ve got here the roundtable, and Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, Jim Cramer of CNBC, and they’re having this discussion of the ad and Obama’s attack ad on Romney. And David Gregory, the host, says, “Mayor Booker, Governor Romney says that this is character assassination, not about economic record. It’s about saying he’s a bad guy.”

BOOKER: We’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know. I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses who grow businesses. And this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable. This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It’s nauseating to the American public.

RUSH: And what he’s talking about here, Bain Capital didn’t do anything. They’re not cutting jobs. This is not the focus. Bain Capital’s done a lot to support business, to grow business. They have bought failing businesses and revived them. Some they succeeded at and some they failed. It’s the way the market works. But what Obama wants to do is target all of these private sector businesses and demonize them, try to make voters think that only government is safe, that all these private sector businesses are out to screw you, to kill you with their products, to screw you, to overcharge you or whatever, and only government, tolerant, understanding government’s gonna take care of you. And Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, works with private equity firms. They’re very much involved and necessary in his state and in a lot of other states. He doesn’t like them being demonized. So then Gregory said, “Jim Cramer, you say there’s a legitimate hit here on Romney, his governing philosophy, whether he ran Bain or how he would run a federal budget.”

CRAMER: Well, look, when I interviewed — trying to figure out whether to work for Bain under Romney, came to school, I heard, “Look, we’re going to cut the fat. We’re going to make these companies lean. The only way to do it is to fire as many people as possible.”

RUSH: Okay, so, once again, here’s Cramer carrying Obama’s water. Yeah, we bought that company to fire people. Bain bought those companies to fire people, make ’em lean, wanted to bring pain to people. This is what Cory Booker doesn’t like. You don’t buy a business to fire the workers because you get off on firing workers. You don’t buy a business to lay people off because you get your thrills making people miserable. But this is what Obama and the intolerant left want you to believe about business, and they’ve got this Cramer guy carrying their water. So Booker wasn’t happy about that, said this.

BOOKER: This is not about what happened at Bain Capital. Heck, I’ve reduced employees in my city 25% ’cause it’s the only way my government would survive. Call me a job cutter if you want.

RUSH: Oh, no, Cory Booker, surrogate for Obama, undercutting Obama, undercutting Jim Cramer. Hey, look, I’ve had to reduce employees 25%. I had to keep the city afloat. Labor is any enterprise’s number one expense. Business, government, what have you. Labor is your number one cost. And if you have to cut costs to stay in business, that’s where you go first, but it’s not why you buy a business. You buy a business because you think ultimately you can make it profitable. That’s what anybody that wants to run a business does, is make it profitable. Now, if you listen to Obama and some of these people on the left, and a lot of people believe this, that people buy businesses simply to write off the losses. Yeah, tax breaks, write off the loss. You have to lose the money to be able to write it off, folks. And that’s not why people go into business, to lose money. Yeah, this write-off stuff sounds good, sounds sophisticated, sounds big time, but you have to lose it to write it off. And that’s not a feather in anybody’s cap. This continued awhile, and Cory Booker eventually got some more in.

BOOKER: Mitt Romney has made his business record a centerpiece of his campaign. He’s talked about himself as a job creator, and therefore it is reasonable, and in fact I encourage it, for the Obama campaign to examine that record and to discuss it. I believe that Mitt Romney in many ways is not being completely honest with his role and his record even while a businessperson. I use the word nauseating on Meet the Press because that’s really how I feel. When I see people in my city struggling with real issues and still feeling the challenges of this economy, I get very upset when I see such a level of dialogue.

RUSH: Wait a second. What happened here? What happened? Why, Cory Booker was out on one side of the issue, and that sound bite was from his YouTube channel. He released a video to clarify his comments on Meet the Press. What happened was, the Obama campaign took Booker to the woodshed. Even Mike Allen at The Politico is making fun of this, calling this Booker’s hostage video. The Obama campaign and Axelrod probably took him hostage. I mean Booker went out and basically undercut the entire advertising campaign with his comments on Meet the Press yesterday. He just blew it to smithereens and then further added insult to injury when he pointed out he had to do the same thing that Obama’s criticizing Bain for doing. “Hell, I had to keep my city afloat, get rid of 25% of my workforce. Call me a job cutter if you want.”

So after that appearance, I guarantee you Axelrod and Obama and the boys got on the phone to Booker and said, “Do you like being mayor? Do you want to go any further than Newark? ‘Cause look, pal, Newark’s nowhere now. If you want to go beyond Newark, you’re gonna have to do some dancing.” They got him to go out and recant, basically. He said everything that the Obama camp wanted him to say, almost like he had a gun to his head. (imitating Booker) “Well, Mitt Romney has made his business record a superintendence. He’s talked about himself, job creator, therefore it’s reasonable, in fact, to encourage looking at him this way.” So it’s reasonable for the Obama campaign to examine that record and discuss it.

Yesterday Booker was chiding the campaign, said he didn’t like this kind of politics, didn’t like this kind of stuff. It made him nervous. Today he’s out there saying, “Hey, Obama’s totally justified looking at Romney, absolutely.” Well, the only way that happens is if he gets taken to the woodshed. Axelrod is still publicly attacking Booker as we speak. Booker got bullied by the intolerant left. Booker went out, said what he thought, believed and everything else, and the tolerant Obama and Axelrod get hold of him and say, “No. That’s not what you’re supposed to say.” In fact, we’ve got Axelrod. He was on State of the Union with Candy Crowley on CNN. She said, “Is not the gist of the ad that you all put out about Bain Capital, Romney’s former firm, that he’s a rich, greedy guy, doesn’t care at all about the middle class?”

AXELROD: The fact is that he wasn’t about job creation, and he and his partners have acknowledged in candid moments, “Our job wasn’t to create jobs. It was to create wealth for ourselves and our partners.” He always walked away with money, and that was the point. The point was that he didn’t — they didn’t fail with the company. They didn’t — they didn’t embrace the failure. They loaded that company, GST Steel, with debt, and then they bankrupted the company. It is not right when you have two sets of rules where the guys at the top prosper no matter what happens, and the workers down the line bear the brunt of it.

RUSH: Okay, go back to sound bite one. You just heard the official regime position. That’s the position on Romney. Now, go back and sound bite one, this is what Booker said about that very thing that you just heard Axelrod say.

BOOKER: We’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know. I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses who grow businesses. And this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable. This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It’s nauseating to the American public.

RUSH: We don’t like that. In other words, the Obama tack here is nauseating. You look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses. Well, hell, the regime’s out there saying they destroy ’em. So Booker is in heap big trouble. A little Elizabeth Warren. Now play sound bite three. Booker added even more to it.

BOOKER: This is not about what happened at Bain Capital. Heck, I’ve reduced employees in my city 25% ’cause it’s the only way my government would survive. Call me a job cutter if you want.

RUSH: Right. So he makes this video, puts it out with a gun to his head, figuratively, and even The Politico is calling it the hostage video because Booker, in order to stay viable in the Democrat Party, had to go out and do a mea culpa and basically try to retract everything he said about Romney and Bain yesterday on Meet the Press.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Austan Goolsbee. He was on Fox News Sunday yesterday. The Obama people are out talking about Bain Capital, and primarily they’re talking about GST, which was a steel company that (snide liberal impression), “Bain went in and destroyed, fired people and made them suffer — and Romney did it!” It’s all a bunch of garbage. In fact, if you want to read the truth about what happened with GST and Bain, Kimberley Strassel had a great piece last Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.

Harold Ford Jr. has come out and told Booker that he shouldn’ta backed off in his original support of Bain. He shouldn’ta walked back his comments. But here’s the thing: If Bain is so evil, if Bain Capital is so damned evil, why do all the Obama ads have to lie about it so much? If it was so evil, why don’t you just tell the truth about Bain? But they’re having to lie about what Bain did, which is another characteristic of liberalism. They lie! They do not tell the truth! And they must have demons.

They must have people that they demonize. Whoever it is — critics, opposition — they’re not just the option. They’re not just people who want to compromise. These are people that have to be destroyed and wiped out. So Chris Wallace is talking to Austan Goolsbee, former economic adviser for Obama. He’s now a professor somewhere. And Wallace said, “Professor Goolsbee, do you see anything wrong with what Bain Capital did? They put lotsa money, millions of dollars, into the steel industry at a time when steel was in trouble. What’s wrong with that?”

GOOLSBEE: Well, it depends how they did it. And as I say they ought to turn over the annual records of the company. In this case, the company did horribly, but the investors did great. So I think it’s a little bit different than a normal investor philosophy, which is: “If we can turn the company around in a positive way, we benefit.” This was a case where they canceled the pensions — they drove the company into the ground — but the investors from Bain actually profited a great deal.

RUSH: That is just such BS. “They got rid of the pension! Oh, yes, the retirement of the hard-pressed workers. The first thing they did was go in and get rid of the workers and then their pensions, but somehow Bain profited.” Paul Ryan puts this in perspective in the next sound bite that we have. He was also on Fox News Sunday. Chris Wallace said, “Congressman Ryan, the Obama campaign says the point of Romney economics is to make money for Bain, to make money for their investors, even if all the workers get wiped out. In this particular case, with the steel mill in Kansas City, the workers in the plant went bankrupt. The 750 workers were laid off. Bain did make millions of dollars in profit.”

RYAN: Mitt Romney was running the Olympics during this time. He wasn’t even running Bain during the period in question. I think the individual, if I’m not mistaken, who was running Bain is a big Obama contributor. What Bain did was they used private capital to try and help struggling businesses. What President Obama is doing is he’s gambling with taxpayer money and giving money to corporate contributors — campaign contributors — like Solyndra, and he’s losing taxpayer money. What we have with the Obama administration is this crony capitalism. On net when Mitt Romney ran Bain, they were very successful, created thousands of jobs, great success stories. We don’t think the government should be in the position of picking winners and losers in the economy, which is the result of the president’s economics.

RUSH: This is an excellent point, and I want to try to expand on it a little bit. Bain Capital is private equity. They went in and they did what they did. And, by the way, they elongated the life of this company by eight years. And they took a risk with their own money. Therefore if they gain, fine and dandy; if they lose, it’s their problem. And here’s Obama out ripping it because somebody lost. What Obama’s doing is much worse! He’s taking taxpayer money and he’s funneling it back to his donors like Solyndra, and they are all going bankrupt.

Every green energy business — solar, wind, or whatever — that Obama’s propped up with taxpayer dollars has gone bankrupt, or will. Obama is recycling money to these people not to help these businesses. Obama’s sending money back to them as a thank-you and a payback for donating to him. And in the process, giving them more money to give to him. It’s another money-laundering scheme. But Obama’s not using his money. He’s not risking his money. He’s spending our money, taxpayer money.

And he’s picking losers.

What they’re saying about Bain Capital is exactly what’s happening with Obama’s businesses. The Solyndra executives made out like bandits. The company was never a viable business. It’s the same thing with these wind energy companies. The executives, the guys that donated to Obama, they get Obama payback. They get cash infusions, forgiven low-interest loans. The businesses go bankrupt. The executives do well and flee to the tall grass, and are free to give more money to Obama in the next cycle.

If there’s any immorality going on here — if there’s any gaming the system — it’s Obama. And he’s not even using his own money. Now, if you want the real truth about what happened between GST (the steel business) and Bain, as I said, Kimberley Strassel had it Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. She said, “The real story of GST…” which is the steel business here that’s come under assault. “The real story of GST is that of a private-equity firm,” that would be Bain, “trying to spark some life into a uncompetitive, over-unionized industry,” the steel business.

“Bain’s crime here — if that’s what you call it — was giving a dying steel plant an unexpected eight-year lease on life,” and that really is the end of the story. Sometimes you can save a company, even a US Steel company, and sometimes you can’t. Obama hasn’t saved one industry! Well, if you want to call it “saved,” General Motors. But outside of that (and that’s even arguable), Solyndra and all these other green energy programs that Obama’s investing in are failures.

He’s destroying the oil business!

For crying out loud, folks, everything they are accusing Bain of doing, Obama is doing! Now, here’s how the Kimberley Strassel piece ends: “A private-equity firm looking to quickly strip value from a company — to ‘suck’ the life out of it,” as Obama charges, “– does not do so by investing $100 million in modernization and holding on for eight years, through bankruptcy. Bain has surely made its share of mistakes, and one may well have been trying to resuscitate a traditional steel firm in the grip of industry upheaval.”

It might have been a big mistake trying to save a steel company. “The irony … is that this plant ‘wouldn’t even be in today’s news, if it hadn’t been the opportunity that came with Bain. Those jobs would have been gone in 1993.'” So Obama and Goolsbee and the rest of these people want you to believe that Bain went in there to kill that company, to lose those jobs, to strip the employees of their pensions and somehow reap millions of dollars of profits for themselves.

What they did was put a $100 million into it and kept it afloat for eight years. They had to lay some people off to make it leaner, which corresponded to what Booker said he had to do in Newark. And if they hadn’t done it, that company woulda never seen those eight years and those employees would have lost their jobs — all of them — a lot sooner than they did. The bottom line is: Bain ultimately might have made a mistake trying to save that particular business, a US steel industry business.

But they nevertheless tried, and they lost on it. And there’s no crime here! Between 2001 and 2003, 31 steel companies went bankrupt in this country. But this is what liberalism does, and this is what the Democrat Party does. It’s what Obama does. Now they want to criminalize it. But as Paul Ryan said: When all of this was happening, Romney wasn’t even there. An Obama donor was running Bain at the time. Romney wasn’t even there.

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